[How To] Customise Unity like Never Before

Unity, Ubuntu’s default desktop shell, has a reputation for not being very customizable.

Whilst that may have been the case in its early incarnations, it’s not entirely true of 11.10.

Ubuntu 11.10 brings a lot of nifty changes in Unity featuring – chameleon theming, active blur, ability to change launcher opacity, relocation of the Ubuntu button from the panel to the launcher, and so on. These new features have opened up the door for a lot more customisation in Unity than many think possible.

Out of the box Unity looks like this:

And after a bit of tweaking I made my Unity desktop look like this: –

Notable differences are:

Unity Launcher placed at the bottom

Dark arrows for the launcher

The lack of backlit for the icons in the launcher

New icon for the Ubuntu button

New icons in the the Dash main window

If you want to know how to make your Unity look like mine read on. But be advised that this guide is not recommended for those unsure of how to revert any changes made.